Almost Single author turns Bollywood scriptwriter - Hindustan Times
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Almost Single author turns Bollywood scriptwriter

IANS | ByMadhusree Chatterjee, New Delhi
Mar 20, 2009 07:10 PM IST

Best-selling chick lit writer Advaita Kala, author of Almost Single, is writing a script for a romantic comedy film that will be ready in April.

Best-selling chick lit writer Advaita Kala, author of Almost Single, is writing a script for a Bollywood film.

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"It is a romantic comedy and will be ready in April," the novelist told IANS. "It has a good star cast, but I can't divulge the names now."

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The author is working with a director she likes. "He is my kind of person, in the same age group. He has written a part of a movie recently, which I liked. The writer in him captured my attention and I realised that the story would matter to him. I had earlier said no to several directors from Bollywood," Kala said.

She refused to name the director. "I do not have his approval."

Kala, whose debut novel "Almost Single" was published by Harper Collins-India in August 2007, is just back from the US after the launch of her book there by the Bantam-Dell Publishing Group.

The book sold more than 40,000 copies, a record number for any first-time author, according to Harper Collins sources.

"I am writing the script in English. I don't watch movies and that's what makes it so interesting. The story, about the Indian Gen Next, is not based in India. It is like the stuff I write," Kala said.

The author said writing a script was a new way of expressing herself. "I love developing characters and dialogues. I have been writing plays since childhood, but have never written film scripts before. I sent my director something I had written and he liked it."

The writer devotes four to five hours to her script every day.

The guest relation executive-cum-novelist developed her skills as a writer in her boarding school. "It was on a hill and was full of stories," she said.

Kala is an avid reader of Ruskin Bond books.

The novelist is receiving conflicting responses to her book from readers in the US. "Some feel that it is a very Indian story. But single women in their twenties and thirties can connect to it," she said.

Photocopies of her book are also being distributed clandestinely in Saudi Arabia.

"I don't mind. One of my male readers said he gifted a copy of the book to his sister in Riyadh, who photocopied it for her friends. Reading fiction gives you more insight into a society than just reading about the society," she said.

"Almost Single" is a semi-autobiographical novel about a 29-year-old hotel executive who looks for love and marriage in a world of wickedly-delightful singletons in an Indian metropolis.

"I am working on the sequel to 'Almost Single' that will carry the lives of the characters forward from where the first novel left off," Kala said.

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